This past weekend I headed to the Smell in Downtown L.A. to attend the annual Women Fuck Shit Up Fest. Over 50 bands from all over the U.S. came out in support of the Alexandria House, a non-profit transitional residence for women and children.
The festival opened at The Smell, a narrow DIY venue that appeals to the all-ages crowd as there’s not a drop of alcohol in sight. Around 9 p.m., the neighboring Five Star Bar hosted comedy, zine reading, and several additional bands, several of which were not included in the lineup—which was just as well, since some of the bands that were on the lineup never took the stage, which was consistently about 30 minutes behind schedule. But with a massive lineup like that and a DIY style event, I can assume that cancellations and running behind just comes with the territory.
A wide range of talent was featured as many of the opening acts had only performed live maybe a handful of times. I had to shift gears a little bit from going into my critical side, as many of the acts did not have their shit together musically. But there was a sense of community that was achieved. There was no hating—only women coming together to “Fuck Shit Up” as subtly as they pleased.
And while there were some really stellar acts including Madame Gandhi, a stunning intimate set with Julia Nunes, the talented musicians in Sawyer Key, the bone-chilling Wolfprize, garage-pop outfit Soar, the love show from Disco Shrine and the Beirut inspired Minimall to name a few, I discovered that this was a submission-based festival and realized that the crew was probably aiming to be as inclusive as possible. It was a shame to hear that headliner Kimya Dawson had to back out, as she was one of the only acts I was familiar with. Bad Cop / Bad Cop followed suit, leaving a bit of a hole in the lineup towards the end of Sunday night.
Despite the punk rock branding of the event, there were few acts that had that punk energy, which is a shame because L.A. is crawling with amazing female fronted bands with that “umph” like Cherry Glazerr, the Regrettes, L.A. Witch, Kim and the Created whom all would have been perfect for something like this. Most of the bands, unfortunately, were in the alt rock realm. But Madame Gandhi was the embodiment of “fucking shit up,” as she came with a message ready and was the ultimate badass on her orange drum kit. She joked, “fucking shit up is like a regular Saturday for me,” and she was the real deal.
Check out some snaps from the weekend here!
Indiecation 
Some interesting points made here, but Women Fuck Shit Up never claimed to be a punk rock event. It seems to have a more punk rock mentality than anything. There were a bunch of punk rock bands there, though. They were all mostly at 5 Star Bar, but I would definitely say that Rats in the Louvre, Trap Girl, Spare Parts for Broken Hearts were all pretty “punk”. There were more, but those definitely were there.
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Thanks for reading! And I totally get that, I was just commenting on how the branding came across as “punk rock” but I would agree the punk mentality was definitely present.
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